Integrating Counseling and Human Development : The Example of Adolescence / Anne C. Petersen.

Division E of the American Educational Research Association is concerned with counseling and human development, yet these two components often appear to be poorly integrated. The integration of counseling and human development, however, is important both for scientific advance and for the provision of better service. A major goal for both counseling and human development is to help people live better, more satisfying lives. Both kinds of research focus on change processes, use the individual as the unit of analysis, and examine similar kinds of phenomena. Counseling research focuses primarily on change through intervention whereas human development research typically involves observation of naturally-occurring changes. These two ways of understanding human experience can be seen as complementary and interrelated. The development of a peer model program to reduce repeat pregnancy among adolescents benefited from information from both counseling and human development research. Collaboration between counseling and human development professionals could also be beneficial in dealing with adolescent eating disorders (bulimia, anorexia nervosa) and with adolescent stress and coping. Information from these two kinds of research is reciprocally informative and, in some cases, information from both sources is essential to the understanding of phenomena and to the improvement of human lives. (NRB)

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Microfiche. [Washington D.C.]: ERIC Clearinghouse microfiches : positive.